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Friends And Family
Conversations from the studios of God's Way Radio in Miami, FL.
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Friends And Family
Navigating Life's Turns: Pastor Jim Gallagher on Faith, Ministry, and the Bonds of Marriage
When the road of life takes unexpected turns, it's the depth of our relationships and faith that often steer us back on course. In our latest episode, we sit down with Pastor Jim Gallagher, whose journey from a curious high school senior to a dedicated pastor and mentor in Vero Beach, Florida, has been nothing short of inspiring. With a warmth that can only come from years of walking alongside others in their faith, Pastor Jim recounts the challenges and triumphs of nurturing a relationship with God, the intricacies of discerning a call to ministry, and how these experiences have shaped his role as a leader, husband, and friend.
Have you ever considered what keeps a marriage vibrant through decades, or how to maintain a steadfast faith in a world that's constantly changing? Pastor Jim opens up about the practices that have kept his own marriage and ministry flourishing, emphasizing the transformative power of daily devotions and scripture. He shares candidly about the evolution of his practice from structured routines to a more dynamic, conversational engagement with God, offering practical wisdom for listeners seeking to grow in their spiritual lives and relationships. The conversation becomes a masterclass in deepening one's faith, fostering lasting friendships within marriage, and the joy of sharing life's journey with others.
God's Way Radio family. Thank you so much for joining us. I'm joined by two wonderful brothers here in the studio and this is something that Pastor Zach and I have been talking about. Just as different pastors come and share with the family, we thought, man, we've got to get these guys in the studio. They have so much to offer and share with us. And so Pastor Zach said let's go for it. So he's been thinking about this and conversations he wants to have and questions he wants to ask, and we have Pastor Zach and Pastor Jim here as our guest. So Pastor Zach, take it away.
Speaker 2:A blessing to be here with you, and I'm coming into year 11 of my marriage. I've been a senior pastor for about three years and something I've been thinking about often lately is longevity, long jevy. There's a lot of people that do things well for a short period of time, but it's a blessing to be able to have men like Jim Gallagher here with us, who's been married for a while and been walking with the Lord for a while. I've been a pastor for a while, so we're just here to pick his brain. He's here to tell us some great stories about just how to grow in life and to continue following Jesus and continuing to grow, as scripture says, from glory to glory. So, jim, I don't know if you want to talk a little bit about how you got saved ministry, how you got to today and just your life.
Speaker 3:Well, first of all, guys, thank you for allowing me to be here. It's a blessing and a blessing to take a few minutes to be able to share with the listeners. I'd say what an amazing thing just that God has done here with Calvary Chapel, miami, and to see the fruit of your dad's labors and your continued labors and the whole team here, and what a blessing it is to have God's way radio and to be able to provide encouragement and teaching on the airwaves. And so hello to those of you listening in. We can't see your faces, but we sure are blessed by your participation in this. Yeah, so my story.
Speaker 3:I grew up in Southern California. I didn't grow up in a believing home. I didn't grow up in a religious home. I really didn't know anything about Christianity or about the Bible or about Jesus, and I was just, I would say I was a product of the culture that I grew up in, and so a lot of I would say a lot of positive things, but also a whole lot of negative things. And I was invited to an outreach event by some friends when I was a senior in high school. I found out later that they had just recently, within the last weeks, had become believers themselves. And they invited me to this event. They called me and said, hey, would you like to go to a Christian concert? And to be honest, I didn't know what a Christian was. I didn't know that it was an adjective that could describe a concert. I just said, sure, I'd like to go. And I heard the message of the gospel for the first time and I wouldn't say that it resonated with me in the sense of like I had this overwhelming realization of my sinfulness or the emptiness of life or anything like that. It just resonated is true? I mean, I'm just I'm hearing something that simply put that you're a sinner. I wouldn't say that I would argue with that. I wouldn't say anyone that knew me would argue with that and that Jesus was a savior and that if I received Christ I could, I could meet God and have life. And so I responded to that and that began a journey.
Speaker 3:I was born again and it began a journey of sort of growing in relationship with the Lord. Because of my lack of sort of upbringing in Christianity or church, or I didn't know, I didn't know enough that you needed to go to church. I simply they gave me a magazine. It was the gospel of John. They told me to read it, and so that's what I did, and so the first two years of my Christian experience was pretty slow growing. I knew the Lord, I wanted to grow in the Lord, but I really lacked the tools, how to do that. And after a couple of years I was really invited into the youth ministry at Calvary Chapel in Costa Mesa and I got plugged in there. I started being taught the Bible. I started having developing Christian relationship, ministry relationships started going on mission trips and just really as my own I started to get really as much as I could take in. And so that's what really began the journey for us.
Speaker 3:That was a while ago. I got saved in 1983. So how many years is that? 40 years, so almost. So it'll be 40 years in November, in which all of a sudden makes me feel like I should be a lot farther along than I am so darn.
Speaker 3:And that journey of beginning to follow Jesus put me on a track that I ultimately met Christy, and so that led to Christy and I establishing a relationship and getting married, and we got married in 89. So that was 33 years ago, and that track led us to a family. We have four grown children. They're all married. Two of them we like more than we like the others because they've given us grandchildren, and so we have three grandchildren. And that track also continued us on a ministry track, where it's since the God was calling me to ministry and we served at our local church for 12 years nine of those on staff and then ventured out in 1998 to to pastor in Vero Beach, florida. So we've been there for nearly 25 years now. So, yeah, so that's kind of the the back book edition of our life.
Speaker 2:So once you got saved and started attending Calvary Chapel, costa Mesa, moor, how would they teach you the Bible? Or I think a term a lot of people use is disciple you? Was there any specific methods in that, or planning or model, or what did that look like?
Speaker 3:Well, I can only say what that looked like for me. So I would say, if you lined up 10 people that all got saved and started attending Calvary, costa Mesa at the same time, you'd like you would get 10 different answers. So for me it looked like that. First of all, there was a hunger that started to develop in me, and the fortunate thing about that particular church at the time is is there were so many opportunities. So I just started going to church every night of the week and so Sunday nights and Thursday nights were in the main sanctuary listening to Chuck teach through the Bible. And then I was also invited in to participate in the youth ministry, which was kind of a big, a big reach for the youth pastor, because I was out of high school, I was brand new really in a relationship with the Lord, but I was out of high school and he invited me in and really I think that that idea of you know, modeled by Jesus, where somebody joins team Jesus and almost immediately they're serving, they're given opportunity because Jesus is going to teach him along the way it's not like Jesus didn't put him through three years of training with him and then release him. They were being released along the way, and so he entrusted things. I became they referred to him as counselors. It's not like we actually did counseling so, but just kind of, you know, helping to run the ministry. I think the New Testament term of deacon is kind of what we were deacons in the youth ministry and, and so that's kind of became my church.
Speaker 3:The youth pastor became my pastor, the youth students became the flock, the youth ministry became the area of ministry, and so over the course of that first year I did things like show up early and move the chairs around and you know, if they were going on a, on some sort of outreach trip, I was on that trip and we'd go street witnessing and go to the camps and serve at the camps and then after about a year we had sat.
Speaker 3:We had also sat with the youth pastor on Wednesday mornings we would arrive early at the church and and we'd sit in this little lobby outside of his office and there were about 12 of us and we just went through the book of Nehemiah together and from that time he started to notice some guys that seemed to have not only a grasp on what the word said but a kind of a sense of being able to communicate it, and so from that, myself and a few of the other guys were given opportunities to teach, so at a camp and then, and then filling in for our high school home fellowship.
Speaker 3:And then we had numerous home fellowships and that were given to us to be able to teach through, and so I was given those opportunities. So I would say, to summarize, I would say, my growth in that early season looked like attending the church where I was learning about Jesus and having opportunities to just engage in relationship with him. It looked like getting involved in a smaller ministry where I was, I was getting more hands-on training and investment, and it looked like me privately then starting to take getting to know the Bible better more seriously in my life. So that's kind of what it looked like for me.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Yeah, I think it's different for each person and so often it's just being available and being vulnerable. Right, it's being available there to have someone else pour into your life and just plowing away little by little, day in and day out, just showing up and saying, all right, lord, what is it that you have for me or what do you want to do in this instance? And it's such a blessing when people take a chance on you, like I remember that in young, in ministry, being able to take a step back in, like wow, I can't believe this person's willing to take a chance on me, that I could. I am more than capable of totally messing this up, and yet they're entrusting something so important and so special to me.
Speaker 2:You had mentioned how you were sensing a calling from a Costa Mesa, from Southern California, to go all the way to Florida. How does that work? Because many young people and even older people they say man, how can I really know it's God? How do I know it's not just my own mind or my own feelings or the indigestion from the pizza, right?
Speaker 3:How do I really know that God himself, the creator of the heavens and the earth, is speaking to me and Directing me to go in a certain direction or to go to a certain place, yeah well, you know, apart from having a Macedonian experience or a, you know, encounter on the road to Damascus, apart from something like that, which is the rarity it's, how do we, how do we know if God is actually calling us into ministry? And if God is then calling us into ministry, how do we know what ministry and where? And so I would say one of the things Paul wrote to Timothy, and he's addressing that particular issue, and he says if any man desires the position of a bishop, he desires a good thing. So the word desire like is that in you. Let me try to illustrate. You know, imagine you're at your local fellowship and imagine someone comes back from a, a mission trip and they start talking about this mission trip that they were on and and the long, arduous travel and the difficult conditions that they were in, some of the challenging Circumstances, and then sharing the opportunities that they had and some of the initial fruit that they saw. If you're sitting back going oh my gosh, that's horrible. That sounds like the worst thing in the entire. All, please, god, don't make me do that. I'd sense that there's probably a strong likelihood God's not calling you into that. If you're sitting there going oh my gosh, I, I wish I could do that. Maybe there's a sense of a calling. So that might be a ludicrous illustration in one sense, but it does address this desire. You know, if you're, if like, please, god, don't ever make me stand in front of people, is that your basic temperament? Then then either God's gonna change your DNA which he can, and we may talk about that in a few minutes but but it also may be well, maybe the Lord's calling you to something other than being in in front of people, communicating. So I think one thing is just, what's that desire, what's in you and for me? I would say the initial desire that I, that I noticed as it relates to, I think God might calling me to ministry. It's just a hunger for his word, and, and what it happened was so and this is not anybody's fault, this is just my how I experienced it in school.
Speaker 3:We would take literature courses and I felt like, when it came to poetry, when it came to anything sort of analogous, I had no idea what these people were talking about. Like we'd read, we'd read, you know Romeo and Juliet, and I think why not just say it? Why all this mumbo jumbo? I don't understand what you're saying and we do. You know, we sit in class at a college course where it's a literature class and we would read these a couple novels, and we read some some poetry and some short stories. And then we'd come, we had assignments and then in the class we would discuss them. And I remember just like I don't understand any of this stuff. And then we'd come in and the one exception was we read a.
Speaker 3:We read a short story called the destroyers and it was about these, these children who had gone into this old it was post-World War two London and they had gone into this old man's house and they took every nail out of every piece of wood in the whole house so that when he was on vacation the whole house fell down. It was just got. It's really interesting story. And and I came to class like excited, like this is amazing, I can't wait to talk about this, and he said that's a dumb story, we'll never read that in this class again. And they moved on and I thought I don't understand any of the stories you make me read. I understand one of them. We're not going to talk about it. So now I'm starting to get serious about the Lord and I'm looking, I'm going, I can't understand the Bible. I don't understand anything that I read. I mean, it wasn't that I wasn't intelligent, it was just that I had struggled with that and so I was actually afraid of the Bible and I I was on a mission trip to England.
Speaker 3:We went into this old bookstore in London and I found a book and if this were visual you'd see that my fingers are about what? Three eighths of an inch apart. It was a book about that thick and it was survey of the New Testament and I bought it for 20p, you know, like a quarter and and this book it would have? It would have about three pages on every book of the New Testament. It would say who the author was, when it was written and A little bit of background information and kind of an outline what to expect entering this book. So I bought that.
Speaker 3:I took my Bible and I went to the shortest books in the Bible, so the New Testament. So I start, I skip, I skip. You know I'd read the Gospels and ask their narrative. They're easy to understand. The epistles are more challenging. Romans is long for second Corinthians are long, so Galatians short. So that's where I started. Galatians is six chapters. I read these few pages. I read through Galatians.
Speaker 3:I got a hold of my pastor at the time cassette tapes and I listened to him teaching through the book. And I did that for every one of the shorter epistles in the New Testament and just started to get to know him and I just was hungry to know the Bible. I wasn't, I wasn't teaching, so I wasn't studying to write sermons, I was just trying to learn the Bible and and so the first thing that desire to ministry was, I just had a real hunger for God's word. Now, the more I got to know God's word, then I Would like I mentioned that setting as we sat through and talked through Nehemiah and I'm sharing things and it became evident to those that were in leadership that Jim has a desire for the word and he's communicating it. So opportunity came, and what that opportunity came? An increased desire. And so if a person is Sensing a call of ministry, I would say get to know the Bible. And someone who is in ministry as as especially as a young person, I would say you're not writing sermons, you're just explaining what the text says. So your focus is get to know the Bible.
Speaker 3:A Second thing that was happening to me at the same time is because I was plugged into, in this case, the youth group, a church within a church. I was getting opportunities and learning how to serve and so I would say, if there's a Called a ministry, there's going to be a desire to know God's word and there's going to be a desire to serve and things like Showing up early and staying late are not burdensome to you. It's like are you kidding, you're gonna let me do this? That's amazing. When I was eventually hired on the staff there, I I thought these people don't understand economics Like I would do this for.
Speaker 3:I've been doing this for nothing. I'm happy to do this for nothing. I can't believe you're gonna pay me to. Every time I got a paycheck, I was shocked. Like you understand, I'll do this for free. I love doing this. So I One sense and it's not the only sense and it doesn't mean it's always there, but one sense of called a ministry is desire. So, and then feed that desire by being a student of scripture and looking for ways to serve.
Speaker 2:I think it's so important to have a proper view of who God is and, in the New Testament, how Jesus tells us to pray to our father. Pray to our father in heaven, and he talks about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. How Good fathers here on earth who are sinful know how to give good gifts. How much more our Heavenly father and I don't know how it's creeped into Christianity, or it's almost like be careful what you wish for. We're careful what you say you don't want to do, because that's exactly what God's gonna make you do. And and it's just so sad how he is that good, good father and he gives us the desires of our heart as they line up in Scripture. So I think that's awesome.
Speaker 2:Jim, being a believer for 40 years, how do you continue to find a love for God and a love for his word? Right, you talked about how, when you first got saved, you had that love for God's word. Is that love still there? How do you stoke it? How do you keep it? Does it just sort of happen all by itself? Or how do you continue to have a love and desire to read God's word?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a that's a great question and I think that I think that I want to take a step back, because you it also asked in the question before about Not just knowing that you're called to ministry, but knowing is God calling me to this. And so, you know, for us it was initially I had, I had served at the church and the opportunity came to Go and become an intern at the church and then, from that, an opportunity be a teacher at the school and then, ultimately, this opportunity to move across the country to Vera Beach, florida. And you know how did we recognize that to be the Lord? And I would say, you know, we, we had to take, we had to take that into the presence of the Lord.
Speaker 3:I it's a little bit difficult to articulate, but for me anyway, but I think, I think you know, there's that, that passage where Mary is at the feet of Jesus and she's upset because Martha's, martha's upset because Mary's not engaged with her, and so she complains to Jesus and Jesus says to her Mary has chosen the better parts and it will not be taken from her and there's a distinction made between what's good and what's better. I mean, is it good to serve Jesus lunch, is it?
Speaker 3:good to keep the house clean for Jesus Is it good to care for. But there was a better thing, and I think that there's a just a distinction that how do we we know how to distinguish the good from the bad. God's word is clear so you're.
Speaker 3:But how do we determine what is our best? And I think the only way to do that is to do what Mary did and sit at the feet of Jesus. So for us it was, it was is God calling us into something different than the ministry that we were currently doing at Calvary, costa Mesa, in the school, and we started this sense that, yes, and then it was well, what is that? And felt like well, I think we are being called to pastor, and so I. I know that there are a lot of approaches to that. I know that they're not inherently wrong.
Speaker 3:Um, I mean, in one sense, I mean, you're in, you're in Miami, um, you could drop, you know, we'll drop Joe at any neighborhood in the in Miami, and there would be a great need for somebody who would, who would proclaim clearly the gospel and and make disciples. So really, you could spin the globe, point land, go and start doing it, and it would be, and I, and you know what, I'm not even sure that would be totally wrong, you know. But I certainly didn't have the faith or the sense that I was supposed to do that. Um, you know, you could go um, and you know, uh, just kind of start praying for city or whatever, but for us I just felt like everything that I'd ever done in ministry. The Lord had opened the door for me. So we just began to pray, and it really I. I even thought to myself. I'm in a classroom, no one knows who I am or where I am. Who's going to ever call me? And one morning my phone rang.
Speaker 3:And my friend of mine told me about a group of people in Vero Beach, florida, that needed a pastor, and so we contacted the guy. We went out to visit them and it was. We didn't hear anything from the Lord. We went home. We decided, well, we'll have to come a second time if we haven't heard no, and so we came out and I was actually standing in the pulpit teaching. There were about 12 people and I just sensed the Lord say move here.
Speaker 3:And so for us, that you know, it was that sense of how did I determine what was the Lord? Well, we sought the Lord, we took steps towards that. God made things clear to us. And so I think, with everything we're trying to determine the Lord, there's the internal aspect of the peace of God and there's the external aspect of God having to open doors you can't open on your own. So now that brings us to your last question, because the other question was well then, how do you then maintain and you know I, I'm thinking okay, I'm going to go pastor, now I don't. I didn't go to pastor school, I I'm not sure exactly what it. You know what is is all entailed in being a pastor. And so I decided here's what I need to do. I really need to get to know first and second Timothy and Titus.
Speaker 3:But from the time we made the decision to move, which was in May, and we moved in August, and in that time I was like diving into first and second Timothy and Titus, like these are the pastoral's this is going to, and as I went through it I thought you know, there's not a lot of practical stuff here. It's more what Paul is saying to Timothy is hey, timothy, you need to be a Christian, because, with the exception of the teaching responsibility, everything else could be said to every per every believer. And so I just kind of had this sense of like to pastor. I need to, just, I just need to be a Christian, I just need to love Jesus and walk with Jesus. And so that kind of became okay. This is our focus.
Speaker 3:On the flight, christie and I were talking and she's like I'm not sure I know how to be a pastor's wife, and we had this conversation on well, you know there's there's no pastor's wives epistles. So let's just be Christians, let's just love Jesus and do what God tells us to do, and so that's kind of been how we've approached our life, and so if that looks like right now, that we're pastoring Calvary Chapel, vero Beach, being a Christian, that's what that looks like, but if that changes, then we're still just being Christians. So so how do I maintain that love for God's word that does that love for God's word? How do I maintain that? Well, I maintain it, the same way that I think any person needs to maintain it, and that is I have to just keep my relationship with the Lord fresh.
Speaker 3:And I would say to any any pastor, young and old, any person in ministry, young and old the best thing that you can do for the people that you minister to is have your blessings. I think that that I'm doing more for our fellowship when I wake up in the morning and sit down with my coffee and my Bible than just about anything else I do during the day. So that that I think is critical is you're not. Jesus isn't calling us into professional ministry, he's just calling us into relationship with him, and that relationship with him for someone who's called into ministry expresses itself in the ministry.
Speaker 2:So yeah, a good friend of mine in ministry. He says we say to each other we just want to be normal guys that love Jesus, we just want to be normal guys that love Jesus and believe. So many pastors or just men in ministry or even just a normal life, we lose focus when something else along the path becomes the main goal instead of the main goal continuing to look like and be fit into the image of Jesus. So that's the whole goal of this life is to look more and more like Jesus each and every day. And when that becomes our goal, it's such a blessing how we become a better pastor. Whatever field of work you're in, you grow in that area. You become a better father, a better friend, and it's just a blessing to continue to seek the Lord in that.
Speaker 2:With your daily devotionals, is there something you do to change it up? Is it the same every time? Is there just a love and desire to go through the word? Are you sitting there for hours and you come out of the kitchen and your face is glowing like Moses, or what does that daily devotional look like? How does it? How has it changed over years?
Speaker 3:So I can remember when I, early on, when I first really started walking with the Lord and I had learned and I rightly so the value of prayer and the value of reading the Bible, and I'd also been warned about the danger of turning my devotion into study time, and so I wanted to make a distinction between I'm studying and preparing for something that I'm going to invest in others and just a personal investment in me and my relationship with the Lord. So I, since I loved reading my Bible so much and I really did, I just enjoyed so much I felt like I needed to spend time in prayer first because I, because I like the reading part so much I think there was a little bit of a stethicism in that and so I would wake up and I would force myself to go on a walk and pray. And then I and it was almost like, let's pray if I get this done so I can go back and read my Bible. So, and I remember so it was a little bit kind of painful, is not the right word, it was just a little difficult for me. And I remember hearing a pastor speaking at a conference and he was talking about how he had his devotions and he was talking about how he just reads his Bible and talks to the Lord about what's in the word and it's more conversational and I felt like I was, I was meeting a requirement by going through this prayer thing and then reading my Bible and it was so freeing to the way it's like, oh, wait, a minute, I I'll just sit down, open up my Bible, talk to the Lord about what's in it, talk to the Lord about what's going on and maintain this open dialogue with the Lord through my day, and so my devotions from that may became so free and I, my approach is I sit down with my Bible and my Bible and I I've done for numerous years reading through the Bible with the you know this many chapters at a time read through I. I think I derive a lot of benefit from that.
Speaker 3:Recently, in the last several months, I've been kind of living just in the Psalms and I take the Psalms, I'll read a handful of Psalms in the morning and let kind of stand out to me and I'll divide them up by the books. You know the Psalms are divided up into several books and so it's like, hey, for the next month I'm just in these, this section of the Psalms, and I'm reading them numerous times over and I have favorite ones and and I don't I don't mean to dismiss the value of the other ones, but these ones resonate with me. I mean there's songs. I mean there's songs, right, some songs.
Speaker 3:You know, even in worship, when the, when, when a man that chooses to lead this song, some people just go oh, I love this song because it resonates something, it helps, it helps you say something to God that you can't say on your own, and so sometimes, like this song, this, just I love this song, and so I've just been spending more time there just enjoying it, talking to the Lord about what's there and then carrying it through so so I felt like I was freed in that and that might not be the best approach for everyone, but it's been super beneficial for me.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Yeah, so often we think that there's only one, one clear cut way to do it, and it's it is. It's. It's freeing to know that. It's different for each person. It's different for each person, just as long as we are intaking a healthy dose of God's word, going from Genesis to Revelation when we can, and how seasons change. How seasons change, thank you. For a lot of young believers it's a read Psalms and Proverbs and a chapter out of the Gospels about how you continue to grow and mature. It just continues to look different. What would you say to a person that maybe doesn't have that natural or supernatural, just love and hunger and desire to take in the word for those that are. Maybe it's more tedious, are those who aren't as well read, or whatever reasons we give up. What would you say to that person and say, man, I want to read my Bible more, but it's just so difficult for me to do it Right right?
Speaker 3:Well, one of the things I would say is, the Bible writers use several different metaphors to describe the value of God's word, and so they talk about it being like water, they talk about it being like food, they talk about it being like a light to guide you. They talk about it being like a hammer to break through stuff, a sword to fight with. I mean, there's all these metaphors, all of which are designed to help us understand. This is super valuable. It's helpful for us, it's helpful to build us up, it's helpful to equip us and it's helpful to enable us to do what God is calling us to do, whether that's something that's intrinsically ministry, or if it's vocation or child rearing or whatever it equips us. So the Bible writers try to talk us into the value of the Bible. So then it becomes approach. And several years ago, I don't know what it was, I don't know if I was having conversation and I was realizing how much we use of anacular as believers. That is foreign to people who are not believers. So the phrase like in this room, with you guys and probably with most of our listeners, if I say you know, and just God just spoke to me, you understand what that means right, but I can tell you that there's a lot of people that think that. So God speaks to you. How does that? What is his voice like? I mean, what exactly does that mean?
Speaker 3:So I'm saying that because I was kind of thinking through that process a handful of years ago. I thought, you know, we talk about how I was having my devotions. The Lord speaks to me, and yet I'm not sure that that translates very well to the average churchgoer. So I was sitting down and we were. I was gonna be going through the Bible reading. It was January 1st, matthew, chapter one, and I thought I wonder how you write a blog. So I Googled how to write a blog and this thing came up and it actually, and within moments I had set up an account and I now had a blog site and I thought I'm gonna write a simple devotion out of the text that I'm reading and I'll just post it on whatever. And so I did that January 1st, I did that January 2nd, I did it just kind of kept.
Speaker 3:It just became super natural and not super like supernatural like, but super very natural, it was just, and so it just kind of kept going through that process and ended up writing a devotion from each chapter of the whole Bible, and so my purpose in doing it was exactly what you just asked. So somebody saying I know my pastors tell me, the Bible writers tell me how important this book is, but I just haven't got there yet. There's too many hurdles maybe to get over. So what we've done with that is we've put it together to where every book of the Bible there's a devotion for every book of the New Testament Psalms and Proverbs. We've also attached to it these very simple questions like thought provoking questions that are taken directly out of the text.
Speaker 3:So what we've made available through that is just at our church we encourage people to follow us reading through the Bible every year, and every for every morning is the New Testament reading. There's also here's something that comes out of what you just read and it's like this is what we mean when God speaks to you. This text meant this, we should do that, and then some dig in close. So we've kind of made that available and I think that's so. It doesn't have to be the resources that we've provided, but one of the things that can be helpful is, like I mentioned, with me, I got this little book that said here's a New Testament survey, something that helps you to engage in that on a regular basis. And so, if it's, hey, I'm gonna get a 30 days through the Gospels book and I'm gonna go through that, or I'm gonna take advantage of this something to get you in that helps you get some footing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then if people wanted that resource, where would they find it? The one you created.
Speaker 3:Well, there's a couple of different ways to get there. One thing is just in our church app, which is Calvary Chapel of Euro Beach. If you download that, you can access it directly in the app and it even has the audio thing so it'll read the Bible to you. But also there's a site it's just pjimgallaghercom and that's the blog site and that you can search by. You don't have to follow our reading program. You could say I'm gonna read through Philippians and you can go find. It says blogs by chapter. You find Philippians. You've got four chapters there. You got a devotional and questions for each thing there.
Speaker 2:So, either of those ways through our app or through the pjimgallaghercom- Awesome If you could give yourself advice when you first started in ministry. You could fast forward or not fast forward. Go back in time right 40 years back, when you first sensed that calling well, first coming to the Lord and then sensing that calling. Any specific piece of advice that you'd give yourself or any specific word of wisdom that you wish you could go back and tell yourself.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I have two thoughts, and one thought is and I've been asked this before and I don't ever want this to sound wrong but I am so thankful for the experiences that I had as a young person. I wouldn't want to change those, and so I would say, lean in to those things. But I grew up in a church that put a very high value on Jesus, on pleasing Jesus, on the word of God, on being involved in ministry, on outreach. I mean, there were just so many kingdom values that were part of this church and so much opportunity for me to lean into those things. And so I would say I am particularly thankful for the leadership of my pastor, and I would say not just my pastor, chuck, but my direct pastor who so influenced my life was a man named Richard Semino, and Richard poured into my life, and so I'm so thankful for this individual who did that, entrusted things to me, taught me ministry, it brought me into his life so that he could teach me how to follow Jesus.
Speaker 3:My in-laws same thing. They were the only really adult, mature believers that I knew, and so, like all my friends that were saved were all my age. And so here's this people 20 years older than I am who love the Lord. Their lives are settled and they were influential. I had a group of friends that were engaged in relationship with the Lord and ministry and that was so helpful to me. I was in a church that taught me the Bible and I was given resources in order to study the Bible on my own.
Speaker 3:So the question that's asked what would I say to 25, 23, 20 year old Jim is really the question of what would you say to 2023 or 25 year old guys now. And so I would say, hey, you want to look for mentors who will pour into you Some guys, ministry guys, some older saints that I mean my in-laws are not pastors, or my father-in-law is now one of our pastors, but then I mean he was a businessman, he was a CEO of a clothing company and so or CFO of a clothing company, and yet he's living out his Christianity. So find those ministry mentors, find those life mentors. Let them speak into your life and surround yourself with friends that you'll do ministry with, that you'll learn to serve and follow Jesus together and be plugged in healthily plugged in to a church where you can grow. So that would be like the one side of it would be.
Speaker 3:I'm so glad I wouldn't change that. The other thing I might say to to me is God's gonna do a work in your life. Like who you are now is not who you'll always be. And God's gonna do a work, cause I look at myself and the hair color and the wrinkles are not the only thing that's changed about me over the years. God has done a work in my life and I would encourage young Jim hey, look, god's gonna do a work. It's gonna be awesome. Let him do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I hope that helps anybody. Yeah, that's awesome you had mentioned even we're just talking about. So often we use Christian ease, so what would your definition be of someone pouring into your life or pouring into someone's life? How would we break that down for someone outside of Christendom? What does that look like on a practical level?
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's a good question. I don't know that anyone's ever asked me that before. So we'll, we'll, we'll, we'll figure out if we can come to a good answer together. I would say, I would say, when we look at the model, jesus said Jesus invited people into his life and so when he said he, he said follow me. And suddenly these guys are now part of team Jesus and they're traveling with Jesus and they're eating with Jesus and they're walking with Jesus and they're, they're, they're venturing into places with Jesus and they make a journey up to Caesarea, philippi with Jesus in the long walk and they and they have conversation in there, and when all the crowds leave and they're behind closed doors with Jesus and they're, you know, they're going into very frightening ministry opportunities. Who wants to go in the house with a demon possessed guy, like, are you, you know? And so Jesus is inviting them into his life.
Speaker 3:By the way, this is, this is just from my perspective. I think that that program that chosen has done such a good job of illustrating that aspect. Like you just feel. Like you feel like I want to camp with Jesus, and but so I would say what it means to pour into somebody, or what happened with me is our youth pastor. He opened his life up for us and and so you know he, he said, hey, on, my workday starts at 9 am, but if you guys want to come at 8 am and sit outside my office and sit down and talk about the Bible together, we can do that.
Speaker 3:And when it came time, you know we're going up to camps, and so there's a bunch of guys getting on the bus to head up with the and he'd say, hey, jim, why don't you ride up with us? And I'm in his, I'm in his family van driving up the mountain with him. And you know I would. I would take on my day off I would go. I was a, I was an apprentice butcher and on my day off I would go up to the church and just hang there and hang with him. And and he had a, he had a diet coke addiction and across the street was a circle K and at some point he'd say, say, come on, and we'd walk. And so much of of my early discipleship was walking from the church across the street so he could get a bucket of diet coke and walk back. It was just so that idea.
Speaker 3:So I would say for, for people that want to invest in others. We're opening our lives up. It doesn't mean that that our house has to be a jungle gym for everybody to hang out in, but it means that we're inviting you into our life and we're saying we want to take what's been invested in us and we want to invest that back in you. The ancient world that the Bible was set in allowed for some more of that. You know when, when Paul invites Timothy to come, they're not sitting, you know, on a plane together with their headphones in, watching, you know, a movie on a five inch screen. They're walking side by side for days together and they're engaged together. And so we figure out ways to do that in a in a way that protects our family but also invests in others. So, pouring in, maybe, maybe he opened me up, invited me into his life so I could learn from him the things he'd learned from others.
Speaker 2:Yeah, today we talked a little bit about Deuteronomy, chapter six, and the whole idea of going through God's word with your children right In the morning. At night, wake up, go to bed, and the part was as you go in the way, as you're walking, and I really do think that is what discipleship, or being poured into or pouring yourself out, is. Just as life comes right, whether it's going to the circle K or taking trips to Home Depot or whatever the case may be, and just spending life with someone else. I would, I remember sometimes wanting to spend time with certain pastors and I was almost like why don't you just give me wisdom, I just say something wise. You know, it's like having to just share life and, as things come up, have those conversations and just watching, watching what a godly man looks like, whether it's going to the Home Depot, getting cut off in traffic or whatever the case may be. To just share life with someone else. And even if maybe you're an older person listening, so often we just complain about the younger generation, how they're just on their phone all day or just in video games all day. So wise for us, as older men, to, instead of just complaining about the younger people, inviting a younger person into your life right, inviting a younger person into your world that hopefully, as you're following Christ, they're able to follow you and follow Jesus in that and through that Changing gears here a little bit.
Speaker 2:I've talked a lot about ministry, a lot about personal walk with the Lord. As you've been married for 33 years of life, I know that you've written a little handbook on marriage. What are some key, important things on having a marriage that can not only just last and survive 33 years, but having a marriage that can flourish for 33 years, that you're still excited about being married. You're excited about your spouse and the future that life holds for you. Well, first, off.
Speaker 3:Christy deserves a medal, but there are a lot of elements that I think can help to move towards or to maintain or even improve a marriage relationship, and one of the things that we've been talking about more. I'm 56 years old now. My wife is much younger than that and that's an undisclosed number. Why is it men? But we have changed, our life situation has changed, our anatomy has changed, and so one of the things that we've been talking about more is how valuable friendship is in the relationship and how, looking back and saying, one of the things that we maintained through this whole thing is friendship. We really like each other and we like to do things together. We like to talk.
Speaker 3:One of the things that I have a problem with is I talk too much and I have to learn to let her she's so wise and to let her share, but I would say, maintaining healthy friendship and enjoy each other. Another thing that I think is very important is when you have children. Children occupy all of your time and attention. That's your responsibility, and while they occupy all your time and attention, and while we want to and need to invest in their lives and helping them to develop into adulthood, there will be a time when those children are grown and leave you and you don't want to turn and look at your wife and she's your children's mother and you're the children's father.
Speaker 3:You've maintained a healthy relationship through that. We're in that stage of life now where all of our sons grew up. I remember the day it was it hit us all by surprise. My oldest son was engaged. His wedding was approaching. One month before his wedding they had found an apartment and so they rented that apartment and so Nathan was gonna move into that apartment to prepare for when he and Hannah got married and prepare their home, and so they had acquired the place. It was set, they'd taken some stuff over and it was kind of just normal.
Speaker 3:And then I remember the day he walked down the stairs and we all realized we're sitting in the living room and we all realized this is the last time Nathan's walking down our stairs, he's, he's moving out of our house, he's never gonna live here like he's getting married.
Speaker 3:And I said something.
Speaker 3:And then and we all huddled at the bottom of the stairs and we were all weeping and he was just started praying and it was such a shock and he left and I thought, wait a minute.
Speaker 3:I I never thought about the time when my kids Wouldn't be like I. I didn't have kids, so they'd leave me like, but I also don't want a 35 year old living in my house, you know, and so so it was just that, that, that realization of, oh, my goodness, this is, this is where we're going, and there's three sons behind him that we're, they're gonna each walk down that stair for the last time and, you know, fortunately we had been in our relationship with each other, preparing for that. We, we have a healthy friendship relationships, so that, because I think that that what can happen to parents is they are they, they just invest in the kids, they don't revest in the marriage, and then the kids are gone and they look at each other and it's like who are you? And now they start putting unnecessary pressure on their kids to have grandkids so they can find an identity again.
Speaker 3:Yeah that's unhealthy. So I would say maintain that friendship, enjoy each other, and You're gonna change. Life's gonna change, but you need to maintain that relationship.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's a yeah, it's such a blessing. We tell that all the time. So young adults, that's so fun being able to just live with your best friend and hang out with your best friend every single day. Yeah, and you've got about two minutes left. Anything you say to that marriage that perhaps they've already Lost that friendship? Is there something they can do to start rekindling that Friendship and start walking down that path again as friends?
Speaker 3:Yeah, god is a God of reconciliation and restoration. And and you know, paul wrote to the Corinthians and he talked about Difficulty in marriage and he talked about even coming to the point of a need for separation. And he says but if you're separated, seek to be reconciled. And so I would say if, if you're at that point and you're like we're at a point in our marriage of difficulty, discord, maybe even a sense of I don't even know if I want to keep doing this thing I would say that seek to be reconciled, seek God to restore that which is broken, seek God to fix that which is is shattered. And and I heard Greg Laurie saying and and I trust Greg is a, greg is a student, he's a researcher and I heard Greg say that, statistically speaking, marriages that were on the brink of divorce, when they can get past that, they, they usually become healthy, thriving marriages again. And so if you're facing that thing where you know you look, and you I'm not sure I like that guy anymore, like I don't like who he's become, I don't like who I am around him, I'm maybe I'm thinking that this whole thing was a mistake anyway and it's time to throw in the towel.
Speaker 3:I'd say pause. Seek God to reconcile, to restore, to fix that which is broken. Hold on, lean in to the Lord in the sense of seeking him for it, and See what God does. The likelihood is, if you hold on, god will bring you through this. God will restore that which seems to have been lost and you'll find yourself down the road so thankful that you held on. And you know we've. You know you've been in the ministry for a while now. We've been in the ministry for a while now. We have. We have Unfortunate stories of people that let go and then we have some amazing stories of what God had done to restore and so be hopeful that God can. God can and will restore.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's so awesome to be able to serve a God that is in the business of restoration and rebuilding things and taking Changing ashes and turning them into beauty. But, jim, thanks so much for being here, for being able to talk with us, spend time with us and, if you're listening, know that God, he, has plans and purposes for you and maybe you just needed that reminder that God does have a hope and a future for you and, whatever difficulty you're facing right now, just press into the Lord, present your relationship with God and watch and be faithful in your life.